M&S District Marblehead Team Championship at Guildford Model Yacht Club

M&S District Marblehead Team Championship © Roger Stollery

M&S District Marblehead Team Championship © Roger Stollery

Despite the fresh freezing cold NNE wind and the light snow flurries everyone enjoyed this team racing event. Firstly it was good to work with others in the team and secondly to use the racing rules in Appendix D to hassle and slow down your opponents, created a great deal of excitement. Normal scoring applied and the objective was to try and achieve one of the 5 winning combinations that score less than 10. Further excitement was created by the 'real race', not necessarily being at the front, but in the middle or the back of the fleet trying to get out of a losing combination, often just trying not be last!

Five teams entered this event, but there were 2 dropouts from the 3 Rivers club so their team became known as OneRivers. To make good the schedule, two skippers were taken from 2nd place and 4th place in the previous race to race with John Male, the only remaining 3 Rivers skipper. A full round was 10 races, with the race committee formed by the team that was not racing for 2 consecutive races on the 5 team schedule. 2 rounds were sailed with each team sailing in 8 races.

GMYC were delighted that the FootyMen from Abington Model Boat Club had accepted the invitation to sail Marbleheads for the very first time. However it didn't take long for them to get the hang of these superquick boats that were able to plane on the reach and run in the B or C rig conditions. They loved it and in the very 1st race Paul Risdale, who had borrowed Hugh McAdoo's PARADOX finished 1st, with his team mate Peter Jackson sailing TUBE CRAZY in 3rd place, which was a winning combination against Guildford 2. The SoleFord team, made up of Martin Houlton and Andy Maynard from Solent and Roger Stollery from Guildford won both their races against OneRivers and the FootyMen. There was a bit of needle in the next race, which was won by Guildford 2 beating Guildford 1, before they too failed against OneRivers. The FootyMen struggled against both Guildford 1 and OneRivers. SoleFord had a technical problem in the next race against Guildford 1, but then came back to win against Guildford 2. Then in the final race of this round OneRivers had a very close encounter with Guildford 1, but beat them in the end by just one point.

After lunch the wind became more north-easterly and lightened so that A rigs could be used. The same sausage course was used although now it was less of a dead beat and with little opportunity to plane offwind. The 2nd round of 10 races went pretty much to the form of the 1st round, except for the FootyMen, who doubled their first round score to finish in 4th place.

Once again the M&S District Marblehead Championship had created a great deal of excitement and was a very good learning tool for learning some of the finer points of the rules. Indeed, there was a protest in which some of these points were aired to the benefit of all concerned. The Guildford club were thanked for setting up this event which is one of the most exciting of the Marblehead calendar.

Overall Results:

1st OneRivers, John Male (with 2nd and 4th in previous race) - 6 wins
2nd SoleFord, Martin Houlton, Alan Maynard, Roger Stollery - 5 wins
3rd Guildford 1, Martin Crysell, Alan Viney, Terry Rensch - 4 wins
4th FootyMen, Peter Jackson, Peter Shepherd, Paul Risdale - 3 wins
5th Guildford 2, Hugh McAdoo, John Townsend, John O'Brien - 2 wins